From alt.pub.dragons-inn Wed Feb 23 10:25:47 1994 Path: netcom.com!csus.edu!csulb.edu!library.ucla.edu!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!sgiblab!news.cs.indiana.edu!news.Arizona.EDU!helium!corleyj From: corleyj@helium.gas.uug.arizona.edu (Jason D Corley ) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [Pitzar] Ever After Date: 17 Feb 1994 02:07:08 GMT Organization: University of Arizona UNIX Users Group Lines: 149 Message-ID: <2jujgc$ps3@auggie.CCIT.Arizona.EDU> NNTP-Posting-Host: helium.gas.uug.arizona.edu It was night. I opened the door, and she was there waiting for me, like she always was, smiling brightly, her eyes shining with the reflected lamplight of the small front room. "Hey, Jake." she said. "How's tricks?" I took off my cloak and laid it down on the table. I walked past her into the bedroom. She stood in front of me, and I saw her shirt was untucked, and the tails lifted slightly in the breeze. "Where do you think you're going?" she said, grinning slyly, "A man in my bedroom, whatever will the neighbors think?" She held her arms out to me. I gently pushed them out of the way and stepped to the window. The shutters were open. I did not look up at the stars twinkling brightly in the thick black sky. I didn not look down at the brilliantly lit city or at the clean and ornate New Low Town. I pulled the shutters closed, and I felt, just for a moment, her warm breath on my cheek. "C'mon Jake," she said, "Let's go dancing. You and me. We'll paint the town red, just you and me." I turned around and poured a measure of lukewarm water into the bowl. I heard the soft hiss of her nightshirt slipping to the floor and the groan of the bed as she sat and slowly reclined backwards, naked. I did not look at her. I splashed the water on my face and rubbed my eyes. I stood up, not daring to breathe, to smell her sweet skin. I walked out, towards the door. I heard her muffled moans, the wet smack of her kisses, and the sudden giggle she gave when my stubbly, rough chin brushed across her bare, smooth stomach. "Oh, Jake." she said. "Oh. Oh." I reached for the doorknob. "Oh," she said "I love you. Oh." I rested my head against the poorly-fitting jamb and shut my eyes hard. I turned around and stepped back into the bedroom. She had her white shirt on, grey trousers, heading out. "C'mon sleepyhead. If we're late one more time, Heartwell's gonna murder us." "Sit down." I said. She looked concerned, and sat on the edge of the bed. "What's wrong, baby?" she said, and held her hand out. I didn't take it. "We have to talk." I said. "Last week." She nodded slowly. "Go on, Jake. I'm listening." "Well," I said. "You came to the office in the afternoon. You were with Sergeant McGruder of the Town Guard." I saw the image slide into place like a painting into a frame: She stood in the doorway, frozen in excited mid-gesture. Next to her was McGruder, rough-looking and half-smiling. The sunlight streamed through the window like a sudden streak of honey across my brown desk. "You were working on the Slasher case. You wanted to be there when the Slasher went after his next victim. And McGruder wanted some extra bodies along. You thought of me." I did not look at her. I looked dully into the cracked, stained mirror above the bureau of the empty room. "It had been a long time since my last stakeout. But I admitted this one looked easy. McGruder, me, you, and five Guardsmen, holed up near the corner where the Slasher was going to strike." Another painting: Dawn grabs my arm as McGruder rises from his crouch, reaching for his sword. My mouth open, paralyzed in mid-shout. In the distance, very small in the painting, a gag is roughly pulled into the mouth of a whore wearing something cheap and filmy and purple. Barely visible, a glitter of metal in the black alley behind her. "We went after him. You twisted your ankle on a broken cobble and fell behind." (small painting: her smooth, long hands pounding into the dirty cobbles as she pushes herself to her feet.) "He was fast, and didn't bother to be gentle with his cargo. McGruder and his men made short work of him. But." A painting: Me, holding a smooth-bladed knife, showing it to McGruder, some strange and terrible realization on our faces. "It was the wrong guy. Just a thief out for a night's work. The Slasher worked with a jagged blade. You'd told me that once." A short series of small pictures: The smooth bladed knife bounces on the cobbles. My boot smashes into a puddle. I emerge into an empty alley, running, turning. "And then we heard you scream." I heard it again---my name shrieked across the humid, dense air like a knife across a stone. Painting: Silhouette, me at the mouth of another alley. In the foreground, a strange arrangement of shapes, perhaps resolving itself into a dark figure crouching over a darker one. There is the slightest hint of red in the blackness. "He was standing right there in front of me, with the knife gone. He was unarmed. He grabbed something on his belt and raised it to his lips. And he sat down in the alley and looked at me. McGruder ran past me. I walked down into the alley." I wiped my hands on my knees. "McGruder gave him a kick, and the Slasher of the south side threw up his dinner. Then he threw up his stomach. He'd drunk poison." Painting: The upper half of a man's face, flecked with vomit and blood, staring out into nothing, trying and failing to say "Help Me." "I turned to you, then, Dawn." I didn't open my eyes. "I turned to you. I couldn't look at what he did to your face. I just couldn't. I looked at your torn clothes, and at your breasts splashed with blood, and down your torso, not a nick, not a scratch, down to your." I would not open my eyes. I would not see that painting. No. "I'd found the knife." I said. I would not open my eyes. I was quiet for a very long time. "I went down and ID'd the body today. Your body. That's why you need to go. That's why you need to leave." I kept my eyes closed. I heard her voice say "But Jake, Jake baby, I live here. We live here. Us. Together. Happily ever after, you know." "You live here." I said dully. "Ever after." she said again. I opened my eyes and walked to the dresser. I pulled my knapsack from it, and stacked my clothes in it. "You live here." I said. "That's the problem, Dawn. You live here." I left the key with the night bartender and walked out onto the street, into the dark moonless night. -- ***************************************************************************** "For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three." --------Alice Kahn Jason D. "corleyj@gas.uug.arizona.edu" Corley is a fugitive from Reality.